Tsitsipas feels he owes Rublev an apology: "What I said in that press conference was very unfair and not correct"

Ahead of the Diriyah Tennis Cup in Saudi Arabia, Tsitsipas admitted that he owes Andrey Rublev an apology for his comments at the ATP Finals.

Rublev ousted Tsitsipas from the ATP Finals as he won the crucial match that was the deciding one as to who would continue in the semi-finals. Tsitsipas made some interesting comments after the match claiming that he was the better player.

Ahead of the Diriyah Cup in Saudi Arabia where both will play, Tsitsipas admitted he owes Rublev an apology for his comment:

“What I said in that press conference against Rublev was very unfair towards him and not correct. I saw it from a sort of different approach; I wanted him to be mad going into his next match (against Casper Ruud), trying to play even better. I’m not going to declare the reasons why because I think it’s quite obvious the situation I was dealing with in the next match if (I) had played that opponent.”

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He eventually did declare why and it had to do eveything with his own rank. A Rublev win over Ruud would ensure the Greek would have finished number three in the world. As Rublev lost, Tsitsipas finished 4th:

“I really wanted Andrey to win the next match and my approach was to add fuel to the fire a little bit, to make him want to be more hungry and more concentrated on his next match. I think that was wrong to do, because it felt like, I don’t know, he wasn’t able to perform, I saw the match, I don’t think he performed as good as I would have expected him to perform. That was my only way to finish in the top three if he had won that match."

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